When it all boils down to a photograph
by nitilia
Summary: In which Ryoma is dead, Fuji doesn't know how to mourn, and Ryoga reminisces. Slight thrill pair.


**Hello. I don't know where this came from. I hope you like it!**

* * *

There was a photograph on the windowsill that Ryoga could never take his eyes off of. He could never bring himself to touch it. He couldn't touch anything in the room. It was sacred now - touching anything would taint it. It would take the remnants of his little brother out of it all.

So he stared at the photograph from afar. There were two boys in it - one, with light brown hair and closed, smiling eyes, and the other was his brother, his cap askew, grinning just as widely as the boy next to him but with all his teeth showing.

Ryoga couldn't remember the last time his brother had smiled, and now it was certain he never would.

Ryoma's room was still messy. When their grandmother had come by for the funeral she'd made a point of trying to clean it up, but Ryoga had locked the door and refused to let her in. As a result, the bed was still unmade. Clothes were strewn across the floor. The desk was a mess of tennis magazines, attempts at kanji (his brother had never managed to get the hang of it) and his much neater English homework. Karupin's toys were stashed in a corner.

And on the window sill was the photograph.

.

" _It's always been here," Nanjiroh said._

 _Ryoga frowned. "I've never seen it before."_

 _His father looked more resigned than anything else. "Well, you haven't been here in a long time, kiddo. 'Always' around here started way after you."_

 _He was too numb to feel guilty anymore._

.

He knew his brother's friends well enough after the funeral to identify the other boy as Fuji Syusuke. Fuji had been on Ryoma's emergency contacts list, right after Rinko and Nanjiroh. Ryoga hadn't been on the list at all.

(That made sense, because it had been years since he'd picked up his brother's calls. It had taken Ryoma forever to learn to stop making them.)

It was Nanjiroh who had called him.

He'd abandoned work and run into the hospital like a madman. Rinko was sobbing too hard to comprehend his presence, and just clung onto him once she saw him while she cried. Nanjiroh looked lost and unfocused and didn't even notice that he was there.

Fuji had been there, of course. He was kneeling next to his brother's bed, tracing patterns on his hand, as if he couldn't feel how cold and lifeless it was.

More people came in. The screams became louder. It was all he could hear anymore.

Fuji didn't move until he was asked to. And he didn't really even then. The doctors tried to take him aside so they could carry away Ryoma's body, but Fuji tightened his hold on his brother's hand and stayed his ground.

It was Tezuka who managed to get him away in the end. Ryoga didn't know what he said to him, but Fuji slowly let go, one finger at a time.

Ryoga only knew all of this because he hadn't been lost in his own grief. He hadn't _felt,_ for the most part. He was cold. He was numb. But nothing else sank in.

 _._

" _Please don't leave."_

 _The words had taken Ryoga by surprise. His brother never said 'please'. Not to him, anyway. He turned around, a bit amazed, and found that Ryoma wasn't even looking at him. He was staring at his suitcases, trying not to look upset._

 _Ryoga faked a smile. "Now, now, Chibisuke, it's not like you'll ever miss me."_

 _There was no reply to that, but Ryoga knew what he'd be thinking. He knew he was being selfish. Of course his brother would miss him._

 _Ryoma frowned, blinking, and then he left the room. That was the last time Ryoga ever saw him alive._

 _._

When he thought things through after the funeral (and he'd had two years to do just that) he realized that he had known Fuji after all. A bit, at least. Back when his brother was in middle school, Rinko would sometimes coax stories about school out of him at dinner. The stories about Fuji were always horror stories.

" _And everyone fainted because of Inui senpai's juice," Ryoma would say, slight fear in his eyes. "But Fuji senpai stood in the middle of the bodies, drank some more, and_ smiled."

He'd managed to get a lot more out of Nanjiroh when he was drunk. Nanjiroh was always drunk these days. The way Rinko was always at work. And the way Karupin had disappeared.

.

" _What can I say?" the man would mumble, eyes glazed over in his grief. "That kid was always around. Ryoma was happier when he was."_

 _Or, "He was like you. Always looking after him."_

 _And sometimes, "Freakish kid. Never opened his eyes. Smiled all the time. Even while the brat was grumbling and scowling like an old man...never understood why he liked him..."_

 _The sobs didn't start soon, but they'd always start._

 _._

"Echizen-san," Fuji greeted him at the door. He even smiled. He didn't do that all the time anymore. "It's nice to see you again."

Fuji looked older from the last time he saw him. His hair was longer, and he was thinner and paler. His dark eyes were clearly visible as he spoke. He'd recovered well after the funeral, everyone said. Got a job and everything. He was piecing his life back together.

His friends, or who was left of everyone he had pushed away, said differently.

Ryoga smiled back. "Please, call me Ryoga."

"Ryoga, then. It's been a long time." Fuji moved aside to let him in, and Ryoga followed him into the living room.

Fuji lived in a small apartment on his own. It was neat and tidy, almost perfectly so. There were two chairs by the coffee table, which had a potted cactus sitting on it. There was no TV, and the walls were covered with photographs. Ryoga knew he'd taken them all himself.

"What brings you here?" Fuji asked pleasantly, moving into the small attached kitchen to get him some drinks.

"I was just passing by," Ryoga said. It wasn't true, but Fuji would know that. He'd only asked to be polite.

He returned a moment later holding two cups of soda. "Your brother told me you don't like coffee," he said, as if he'd learned this fact just yesterday instead of years ago. Ryoga nodded his thanks, and Fuji took a seat in the only other chair, put his own cup down on the table, and looked at him seriously. "How are you, Ryoga?"

The most important thing about people who knew what it was to lose someone was that they never expected you to get over it. "Better. I'm better."

Fuji smiled. "That's good."

.

" _He wouldn't even cry," Rinko had said once over dinner. "After he got the news, all through the funeral, he wouldn't even cry. He might have been better now if he had."_

" _It's not like there's anything wrong with him," Ryoga snapped later to Nanako. He was getting sick of Fuji Syusuke. "He's living his life just fine."_

 _Nanako smiled sadly._

 _._

Neither of them had much to say to each other, so they sat in silence for the most part. Fuji was good at making small talk. He talked about the weather. He talked about his job. He talked about how Ryoga never thought to stop by anymore.

Ryoga had seen the photos on the wall before, the last few times that he'd 'passed by'. They were arranged in neat rows and columns all over the apartment. The Seigaku regulars were in a lot of them. Ryoma was in more - smiling, scowling, or trying to attack the camera. In one picture he had his teeth bared and a spoon held menacingly towards the photographer, as if he could grievously injure him with it.

His stomach twisted every time he looked at the photos, but Fuji felt nothing of the sort.

.

 _He'd understood Fuji's version of contained madness much later than everyone else, when he passed by Fuji's house at three in the morning, and noticed the lights on inside. He didn't know what came over him, but he knocked._

 _Fuji opened the door looking like hell but with his eyes as bright as ever. "Echizen-san! What brings you here?"_

" _...I was just passing by. I thought you'd be asleep by now."_

 _Fuji looked at him strangely. "It's only three."_

" _...only?" That explained why he looked like he hadn't slept in weeks._

 _Fuji brushed it off. "Would you like to see what I'm working on?" he asked, a bit excited._

 _When Ryoga went in, he found the walls covered with photos. Almost entirely. Fuji wasn't finished yet – photographs were still spread out all over the floor – but so far, it was beautiful._

" _Ryoma would love it," Fuji said, smiling at his own work._

 _Ryoga didn't respond._

" _I'll show it to him someday." He looked at Ryoga's expression and shook his head. "I don't mean now. Later. We'll see him soon, yes?"_

 _._

Fuji talked about Ryoma like he'd never left them.

He wasn't crazy - he didn't believe that he was alive. But he didn't seem to think otherwise either. Anyone who tried to talk him into realization was immediately taken to the door with a kitchen knife to show them the way.

Fuji made it through almost fine without Ryoma. But it was only because he never tried to grasp the fact that he was gone.

(" _I'll tell him when I see him.")_

(" _I'll show him when I see him.")_

(" _We're going to see him, yes?")_

"He talked a lot about you," Fuji said at last, staring at his cup of soda. "All the time."

"I'll bet he never said anything good."

Fuji smiled a bit, letting it fade before it fully formed. "Not often, no. He mostly talked about how you were a hopeless brother who couldn't afford your own oranges. But then again, he didn't say much good about anyone."

.

" _He isn't human," Ryoma would declare at the dinner table, stabbing his fork in the air. "It's a miracle buchou let him on the team. Evil genius plotting to ruin us all."_

" _If I don't come home one day it's because Fuji senpai blew us all up."_

 _According to Nanako the descriptions stayed the same throughout high school._

 _._

The same picture that was on Ryoma's windowsill was on Fuji's refrigerator. It seemed to be the only photo in his house with both of them in it alone. Which made Ryoga suspect that it was the only photo not only in his house, but anywhere, because if Fuji didn't have it, no one else would.

It was rare for Ryoma to smile like that.

Ryoga wished he could remember it.

* * *

 **So...what do you think of it?**

 **I don't know why I always make Ryoga run away or leave. I know that we now know what actually happened to him, but still. He just seems like the sort of person to do that. :/**


End file.
